Warm Sunday mornning sidewalk good tidings: Holiday fear

The HORROR REPORT went back to black. We left the white background after a number of user complaints and reader gripes.. They didn't like the new design we had for about three weeks. While I did, I decided that the readers' happiness is worth more than mine.So back to black we go.Welcome to the new old new old HORROR REPORT on a Sunday morning.

And some more choice headlines from the Ethically Deprived Highway.. The Senate torture report is still resounding across the nation. But the nation chooses to look away, averting their eyes to the previous decade of life in which we went lower than low.. in the torture report is this: Spokane psychologists were paid $80 mi for torture program work.. Their job was to help the nation with the new mission of ''enhanced'' interrogation.. Doctors and medical workers, those swearing to do right in the world, were a part of something very problematic and often contrary to their oath. Doctors help anally hydrate subjects. CIA were helped by doctors. By nurses. By specialists of all sorts and sizes.. Among some highlighted issues: Doctors found prisoners with broken feet and yet STILL approved them to be in standing positions for 52 hours.. And psychologists actually also served often as interrogators.. So now the question: Will medical professionals face any consequences?

People are STILL talking about the BABADOOK, the horror movie of the year according to many.. the WASHINGTON POST interviewed the director of the film, Jennifer Kent. A few noteworthy comments from Kent include, "A lot of people, when I spoke to them, as a woman, and said, ‘Oh, I’m directing a horror film,’ it was like I was directing a snuff film or porno or something terrible,” she says. “The view on horror is that bad". And "Women do love watching scary films. It’s been proven, and they’ve done all the tests. The demographics are half men, half women. And we know fear. It’s not like we can’t explore the subject." The movies making the biggest impression on KENT were HALLOWEEN and THE THING. Kent also makes his superb point about horror itself: "I feel like a lot of the people who make horror actually don’t understand its depth and its power,” she says. “Unbeknownst to themselves, they’re looking down on the genre. I also think a lot of horror is made cynically, and by that I mean that it’s made to make money." Absolutely agree! And on violence in horror--the gorefest and torture porn of recent years--Kent says that "the worst of them — the most violent and degrading and debasing versions of the form — probably are geared toward people who maybe identify with the killer, who maybe are getting off in some way." Yet again, agree.. I would love the chance to sit down and talk to Jennifer Kent in some detail.. I think her points on horror and her thoughts on the genre are spot on.. There is a good chance that Jennifer Kent has become the new queen of scream, as some have dubbed her. From the land down under, she took over the world of horror..